Adventures of the Road Runner | |
---|---|
Looney Tunes (Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner) series | |
Directed by |
Chuck Jones Maurice Noble Tom Ray |
Produced by | David H. DePatie |
Story by |
John W. Dunn Chuck Jones Michael Maltese |
Voices by |
Mel Blanc Dick Beals Nancy Wible Paul Julian (uncredited) |
Music by | Milt Franklyn |
Animation by |
Ken Harris (supervising) Richard Thompson (supervising) Ben Washam (supervising) Tom Ray Bob Bransford |
Studio | Warner Bros. Cartoons |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date(s) | June 2, 1962 |
Color process | Technicolor |
Running time | 26 mins (two reels) |
Language | English |
Adventures of the Road Runner is an 1962 animated film, directed by Chuck Jones and co-directed by Maurice Noble and Tom Ray. It was the intended pilot for a TV series starring Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner; however, the series was not picked up until four years later when Warner Bros. Television produced The Road Runner Show. As a result, Adventures of the Road Runner was released theatrically alongside the live-action film Lad: A Dog, and was subsequently split into three further shorts. The first, To Beep or Not to Beep, was released in 1963; the other two, Road Runner a Go-Go and Zip Zip Hooray!, were assembled by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises in 1965 after they took over the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series.
The film revolves around Wile E. Coyote reviewing his past attempts at catching the Road Runner (in the form of stock footage from previous Coyote/Road Runner shorts), and making new, revised plans to catch him – which go just as wrong, if not more so than the first attempts. In a mostly unrelated story, as two children (one of them is Ralph Phillips) watch the Coyote on television, Ralph is talking about how much trouble he has concentrating on things and gets caught up in his daydreams (re-using footage from Jones' earlier short, From A to Z-Z-Z-Z in the process). The two stories briefly link up when the Coyote directly addresses the kids on why he wants to eat the Road Runner. This sequence features a television commercial for "The Acme Batman Suit! The only Batman suit worn by bats!", which is newly narrated stock footage from Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z (coincidentally, a few years after the cartoon's first showing, WB would acquire DC Comics – publishers of the Batman comics).